3 ms·

You think lisp is "weird and sinister or ghostly" and that 'we' are still wrestling with something 66 years later? This sounds more like someone getting caught

You think lisp is "weird and sinister or ghostly" and that 'we' are still wrestling with something 66 years later? This sounds more like someone getting caught up in the pageantry of a niche that pragmatic people have left behind a long time ago. Lisp was very influential, but those advancement have made their way into practical languages and lisp has been impractical for many decades at this point.

tmtvl 3y ago
Ah yes, all of the modern practical languages allow you to connect to a running system, redefine a class, and automatically update every existing instance of that class.
- CyberDildonics 3y ago
  Sounds like most scripting languages.
  - bitwize 3y ago
    Scripting languages typically do not retroactively update existing instances. Afaik Common Lisp and Smalltalk are the only languages that do this.
    - CyberDildonics 3y ago
      It's easy to just assign different functions to a metatable in lua. That isn't the point though. You were saying lisp is some mystical thing and it is 66 years old. Its influence happened decades ago. It isn't about every language having every feature. Pretty much all software is made without lots of the features in lisp because not every tradeoff is worth it. Lisp itself is barely used because it isn't about a check list of features, but pragmatism of an ecosystem, syntax, actual compilation etc are all crucial. Lisp is not a modern tool, it is an influential invention from over half a century ago. When people are stuck on an airplane, they don't try to watch citizen kane, they want to watch literally anything else. Influential isn't the same as being good by modern standards. People don't want to write lisp and people don't want to use software written in lisp. Sorry for the harsh reality check.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
floren 3y ago
> This sounds more like someone getting caught up in the pageantry of a niche that pragmatic people have left behind a long time ago. And once you notice it once, you start noticing it everywhere.
wtetzner 3y ago
> those advancement have made their way into practical languages I agree with this for the most part, though I've yet to see a non-lisp language support macros as nicely as Scheme's syntax-case. Also, while Lisp's features have made their way into modern languages, there are very few that contain all of them at the same time. > those advancement have made their way into practical languages I disagree with this.
- kazinator 3y ago
  A language that contains all Lisp features becomes identifiable as a member of the Lisp family, and is then removed from the discussion of languages that don't have all Lisp features.
kryptiskt 3y ago
Scheme has pioneered a lot of stuff over the last 30-40 years that is still fresh for most of the PL world, hygienic macros (like Rust is trying to implement), delimited continuations (which underlies Java's new virtual threads, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vupFNsND6o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vupFNsND6o), efficient closure representations (used all over the place since everybody got lambda fever). Into formal verification? Scheme was there in 1995 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/VLISP%3A-A-verified-implementation-of-Scheme-Guttman-Ramsdell/ac33ecc71cb4d3adf9c5fd2b57cf2425ceded9a0 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/VLISP%3A-A-verified-im... And there is at least half a dozen things in Racket that I wish mainstream languages could get their ass in gear and copy, but no such luck.
- bitwize 3y ago
  Insert meme of Nolan Grayson, representing Lisp/Scheme/Racket programmers, pointing at fighter jets labeled "transpilers" and saying: "Look at what they need to mimic just a fraction of our power!"
  - CyberDildonics 3y ago
    I think the roles would be reversed when trying to make fast, small interactive software that people want to use. "Powerful" is interesting but clear, straightforward and fast is better. No web browser, database, video codec, or high end video game is written in scheme. At best it's inefficient ancillary software that someone wrote in scheme because they wanted to, not because that's what a user wanted.

tmtvl 3y ago

Ah yes, all of the modern practical languages allow you to connect to a running system, redefine a class, and automatically update every existing instance of that class.

CyberDildonics 3y ago
Sounds like most scripting languages.
- bitwize 3y ago
  Scripting languages typically do not retroactively update existing instances. Afaik Common Lisp and Smalltalk are the only languages that do this.
  - CyberDildonics 3y ago
    It's easy to just assign different functions to a metatable in lua. That isn't the point though. You were saying lisp is some mystical thing and it is 66 years old. Its influence happened decades ago. It isn't about every language having every feature. Pretty much all software is made without lots of the features in lisp because not every tradeoff is worth it. Lisp itself is barely used because it isn't about a check list of features, but pragmatism of an ecosystem, syntax, actual compilation etc are all crucial. Lisp is not a modern tool, it is an influential invention from over half a century ago. When people are stuck on an airplane, they don't try to watch citizen kane, they want to watch literally anything else. Influential isn't the same as being good by modern standards. People don't want to write lisp and people don't want to use software written in lisp. Sorry for the harsh reality check.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

floren 3y ago

> This sounds more like someone getting caught up in the pageantry of a niche that pragmatic people have left behind a long time ago. And once you notice it once, you start noticing it everywhere.

wtetzner 3y ago

> those advancement have made their way into practical languages I agree with this for the most part, though I've yet to see a non-lisp language support macros as nicely as Scheme's syntax-case. Also, while Lisp's features have made their way into modern languages, there are very few that contain all of them at the same time. > those advancement have made their way into practical languages I disagree with this.

kazinator 3y ago
A language that contains all Lisp features becomes identifiable as a member of the Lisp family, and is then removed from the discussion of languages that don't have all Lisp features.

kryptiskt 3y ago

Scheme has pioneered a lot of stuff over the last 30-40 years that is still fresh for most of the PL world, hygienic macros (like Rust is trying to implement), delimited continuations (which underlies Java's new virtual threads, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vupFNsND6o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vupFNsND6o), efficient closure representations (used all over the place since everybody got lambda fever). Into formal verification? Scheme was there in 1995 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/VLISP%3A-A-verified-implementation-of-Scheme-Guttman-Ramsdell/ac33ecc71cb4d3adf9c5fd2b57cf2425ceded9a0 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/VLISP%3A-A-verified-im... And there is at least half a dozen things in Racket that I wish mainstream languages could get their ass in gear and copy, but no such luck.

bitwize 3y ago
Insert meme of Nolan Grayson, representing Lisp/Scheme/Racket programmers, pointing at fighter jets labeled "transpilers" and saying: "Look at what they need to mimic just a fraction of our power!"
- CyberDildonics 3y ago
  I think the roles would be reversed when trying to make fast, small interactive software that people want to use. "Powerful" is interesting but clear, straightforward and fast is better. No web browser, database, video codec, or high end video game is written in scheme. At best it's inefficient ancillary software that someone wrote in scheme because they wanted to, not because that's what a user wanted.